


let all be quiet in your head

by liesmith



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: AU, F/M, Group Therapy, M/M, Other, Polyamory, Slow Burn, before each chapter ill have a more in-depth trigger list, like Mega au, mental illness talk, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 13:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4962784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmith/pseuds/liesmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>group therapy is bullshit and sam can't believe she's letting herself do this</p>
            </blockquote>





	let all be quiet in your head

**Author's Note:**

> additional triggers: mention of child abuse

She doesn’t want to be here. Not in a million fucking years does she want to be here, but her therapist keeps saying it would be nice, if she just got out, and you know, _talked_ to people, and.

Sam wants to _die_.

But she takes her seat in the circle of chairs, trying to ignore how terribly stereotypical this is, and smiles at anyone who looks at her. She has to at least pretend she wants to be here and boy, is she good at acting. Too good, says her therapist. Sam ignores the tingle of the voice in the back of her skull and lids her eyes, watches as the rest of the group filters in. A blond kid in too many layers sits diagonal to her, adjusting his glasses, and across from her sits a sullen boy with bags under his eyes, way undressed. He must be freezing. Sam could care less. The building is heated enough. She leans back a little, hands folded in her lap. A few kids trickle in and then what she assumes is the head of this group takes their seat, smiling.

“Welcome to Haven.”

“Haven my ass,” mumbles the sullen kid. Sam feels her face twitch and quickly relaxes it back into mild indifference. Sullen kid notices, though. Sullen kid notices she gave a twitch of a smile and now he’s grinning at her. Shit. The counselor keeps on talking though, pretends like sullen boy never said anything. Has them go counter clockwise and introduce themselves. Sam learns the too many layers boy is named Chris and when it comes to her moment, she sighs out her name.

“Sammy.”

Her head turns towards sullen boy, half annoyed with the nickname and half annoyed he’s addressing her, and she glares briefly, which only makes him wink at her. God dammit. He opens his mouth but the counselor ushers the girl besides her to speak. The names continue and when it comes to sullen boy, he just rolls his eyes but says his name. Joshua. Sam just ignores his stare for the moment, listening to the counselor rattle off some pre-prepared speech about how being here is the first step, how what they’re doing is good and it’ll help, and Sam tries not to yawn. She’s been here before, when she was younger. When her aunt first started getting her help when Sam couldn’t conceal the black eye she sported around thirteen. That group crashed and burned just like this one will.

It’s not that Sam doesn’t want help, but she doesn’t _need_ it. She can make it through on her own.

“Sammy,” Josh murmurs next to her ear, makes her jump a mile. He just laughs and pats her back, makes her flinch away as he saunters over to get a donut, ignoring the group at all costs now, “hey, Sammy, what’re you in here for?”

She tries hard to ignore him, but he just leans against the back of her chair as he munches loudly down on his donut. He lets a minute of silence pass before he talks again, sighing a little. “I’ve been to like… four of these things. They don’t work.”

Boy, do they not work. At least for Sam. But she still ignores him and Josh rolls his eyes and lazily makes his way back to his chair, but he still watches her, brushing donut crumbs off his shirt. The hour passes by uneventful after that; Josh leaves her alone. Sam speaks when spoken too, which is rare, once the counselor realizes she doesn’t want to talk. That’s just fine. She’s only here for a few weeks before her therapist can consider it a success. Chris, layers boy, speaks once but he stutters the whole damn time and in the end, doesn’t even bother finishing what he’s talking about out of embarrassment. Sam feels for him; despite everything, her protective instincts kick in on overdrive when she looks at him. Damn.

They’re let loose to the donuts Josh has already stuck his hands in and seemingly watered down coffee (at least to her, it tastes watered down). Sam watches Josh make a beeline for her and sidesteps him immediately, bumping into Chris by the table. She gives him an apologetic nod of her head before stepping around him and making her way towards the door. Josh doesn’t follow, thank _God_ , and Sam makes it out alive.

At least, until next week. She yawns behind her hand, pulling her coat close around her as she thumbs through her messages. One from her aunt, making sure she went, and two from Ashley asking her how it went and if she met any friends. You know, like it’s kindergarten or something. She pockets the phone, choosing to ignore the texts for now, and makes her way to the bus stop. 

It was going to be a long week.

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to write and a friend and i started talking about sweet ot3 and this was born bc of them. slow burn nd kids helping each other out and being... kissy... im shit @ slow burn so let's see how far i can go before someone touches mouths
> 
> it'll be mentioned in the fic but if you want to know now sam is a survivor of child abuse, josh still has psychosis and working through something that happened to his sisters (sorry hannah... sorry beth...), and chris has avpd + bpd


End file.
